Pulled
by Jeniveela
Summary: How does it feel to die in the matrix like Apoc or Spark did, to have the plug suddenly pulled on you by your own operator? Angst-y one shot. Please read and review.


**Title: **Pulled

**Author: **Jeniveela

**Category: **Angst

**Summary:** A human rebel's last thoughts before the plug is pulled on him/her by the operator that betrayed him/her.

**Rating: **PG for violence, and angst.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own 'The Matrix' nor am I affiliated with Warner Bros. in any way, shape, or form. Yep, the only thing I own of 'The Matrix' is a DVD, but apparently I don't own the movie itself…

**A/N: **This is my second 'Matrix' fanfic, if anyone cares, so I am still fairly new to this genre of fanfiction, although I have been a fan of the movie since it first came out in 1999. Anyway, this is just a short, angst-y one shot about the thoughts of an unnamed human rebel shortly before the plug is pulled on him/her by the operator that betrayed him/her. I didn't write this with a particular character from 'The Matrix' in mind, so this fanfic could be about Switch or Apoc in the first movie…or it could be about your least-favorite, still surviving character, if you like…~_^;;

As always, please, please, please read and review! Comments, compliments, and constructive criticism (the Three C's) are all accepted and welcomed. Flames will be given to my own personal Balrog. _Domo arigato!_

~*~*~*~*

_I'm running, running for my life…_

And this time it isn't from the Agents. Sure, I know they're chasing me. I know I should be running from them. I can hear their thunderously loud, heavy footsteps echoing against the pavement behind me like the ominously resonant beating of ceremonial drums as the moment of sacrifice draws near…And it looks like I'm going to be the offering laid on the alter this time.

I should be running from them. But I'm not running _from them anymore, not running for my life solely because of _them_ anymore. The gunshots scream past me like deadly shooting comets, shrieking past me so close that they ripple my long, black trench coat, dark as original sin itself, billowing out behind me like the tumultuous waves of a dark, stormy sea. _

But I don't even care about the bullets shrieking past me anymore. The Agents could riddle my body with holes right now, and I wouldn't care because it doesn't matter anymore. The bullets just don't matter anymore. The Agents don't matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore except the cold, hard fact that in a matter of a few mere seconds, my life will be over. Literally.

In fact, I have the strongest temptation to just stop dead in my tracks and wheel around to face them for once, to face them, to see if there is any trace of anything, anything at all, even remotely resembling emotion in their faces when they finally see me stop, give in, see my body jerk and crumple when they unload their ammo on me, see the twisted, grim look of bitter victory frozen on my face as I go out in a blaze of glory… 

I just want to stop _running_ for once. I hate running. I'm always running, always running away from someone, from something. I don't want to keep running anymore. But it looks like I'll always be running…until I die…

_Running, running…_

_So…hard to…breathe…_

_So…hard…___

It's not fair. Even _I _think it's not fair, and I'm the one whose personal mantra was 'Life's not fair'. I learned that from hard past experience. If life was fair, then I wouldn't be where I am now doing what I am doing right now. If life was fair, we wouldn't be fighting this 'war' of humans versus machines. If life was fair, none of this would have ever happened. There would be no matrix, no deception, no control, no lies…

But I can only wonder…If life was fair…and none of this ever happened…then what would have happened? If I wasn't risking my neck nearly every other day to take down the machines, what would I be doing instead? If I wasn't living where I'm living now, where would I be living in this other world in this other time? What sort of person could I have become in this hypothetical 'other world'?

But…I guess I'll never know because in a few seconds, my life will be ended and in a rather pathetic way, too. In just a few seconds, in just another heartbeat, in just another breath, suddenly I will just slump to the pavement like a marionette whose puppeteer has just released the strings, dead of an unknown, 'mysterious' cause. 'Mysterious'…Hah…You don't exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out why I died. It'll be obvious to the Others…if they manage to last longer than I'm going to…

Of course, the Agents will probably think they've shot and killed me and run on without giving me a second thought. They don't care how I die. To them, a dead human is a dead human; it doesn't matter how they are killed. It just matters that they are killed, no more and no less. 

That's the way it always is with machines, isn't it? That's the way machines are built, right? Do the job, do the job efficiently, get it done, and then move on and do it again…Again and again and again…Don't question your programming. Don't question your purpose. Don't question your worth. Don't question what you're doing, and you sure don't question yourself…

But then again, now that I think about it, that's the way it is with Us, too. Sure, we 'freed' our minds, freed ourselves from the machines that enslaved us, freed ourselves from their control. 

But we're not really all that free, now that I think about it. We got freed from one system just to get imprisoned in another system, a never-ending system of fighting and killing the machines in this perpetual war for humanity's freedom, and we're virtually programmed to do it again and again, fighting and killing, fighting and killing, never questioning our purpose, never questioning the worth of what we're doing, whether all our sacrifices will really mean anything or not in the long run…Just like the machines. 

Now that I come to think of it, maybe we're not all that different, after all…

_Running…Run…ning…_

_Heart pounding…so hard…_

_It hurts…_

I suppose the only thing that separates us from the machines is the fact that we can make our own choices or at least have the illusion of making choices. We're not completely programmed to a strict, iron code that dictates our every move, our every action, our every decision. To some degree, we have control over ourselves and our own destinies…or at least we'd like to think we do. Sure, our minds have been manipulated and instructed in a certain way to influence our behavior to some extent. 

But there is still some part of our mind that isn't hard, coded instructions. There is still a part of our mind that is made up entirely of variables, ever-changing variables that are all subject to change because of the cause-and-effect variables of the 'world' around us.

And these variables allow us to make our own choices, to make different choices at different times, to make different choices in similar situations and get a different outcome each time…Or at least I think so.

And these variables allowed our operator, that psychopathic, back-stabbing sadist, to make his decision, to choose to sell his soul to the machine Devil that we've been fighting, to pull the plug on all of us for a cheap, quick penny and the promise of a life lived in sweet, ignorant bliss…

The real kicker, though, is that all he has to do to earn it is just pull that plug. Just one quick, easy jerk, and it's lights out, game over, for all of us. It's like wringing the neck of a chicken…but I'm sure that the chicken suffers a whole lot less. At least the chicken knows when the end is nigh. The chicken can see the butcher rolling up his sleeves and preparing the chopping block; it _knows_ when it's going to die.

I, however, do not have that convenience of knowing exactly when I'm going to die. I have a strong suspicion that it's going to be some time within the next matter of seconds. He's probably just biding his sweet old time, toying with my mind before he kills me, the sadistic, homicidal maniac. After all, he's going to have all the time in the world after he pulls that plug. It will only take a second- not even that –to pull that plug, and then he'll have a whole, long, blissfully ignorant life ahead of him. 

Eternal damnation was never so quick and easy, huh?

_Run…ning…Run…ning…_

_Can't breathe…Can't breathe…_

Oh, God…He's doing it. He's doing it right now. I can feel it. Eerily tingling, icy currents of electricity are racing up and down the back of my neck like the Grim Reaper's icy breath, concentrating on the spot where the plug would be back in the real world as he grabs the plug-

_Stumbling-_

_Staggering-_

_This can't be…happening…_

The world is blurring before my eyes like an only half-remembered, yet horrifyingly vivid nightmare-

_Wake…up…_

_This can't…be…happening…_

I'm stumbling…crashing…falling-

_My body…What happened? _

_Severed from my mind-_

Lungs tight, can't breathe-

Blurred vision fading to black-

_Oh, God, help me…This can't be-_

The plug is pulled.

~***_FIN_*~**


End file.
